Defense of Marriage should be allowed to sink

I try to avoid outdated pop culture references, but I dredge one up every semester as I lecture my college journalism classes not to let their stories bog down in repetitive direct quotations.

A news story should move forward, preferably at a breakneck pace, so it keeps the reader's attention. This is where I refer them to one of my favorite exchanges from Woody Allen's "Annie Hall."

Allen's character is acknowledging that his relationship with Diane Keaton's Annie Hall isn't working any more.

He says, "A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark."

I tell the students not to let their stories be dead sharks.

Unfortunately, a lot of real-life marriages end up as dead sharks. The oft-cited statistic that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce almost certainly is inflated, but we've all seen and read about plenty of disastrous marriages, if not experienced one firsthand.

The best "defense of marriage" is convincing couples who are very young and/or very immature — which has no age limit — to proceed with extreme caution.

For that reason, I would suggest that many gay couples are well-suited to having successful marriages. Lots of them have been together for years, waiting for the opportunity to make their unions official in the eyes of the law and the world. Their marriages are much more likely to succeed.

Unfortunately, the "defense of marriage" as formalized during the '90s in federal and state Defense of Marriage Acts has just been a euphemism to legitimize discrimination against same-sex couples. From the beginning, this has had everything to do with politics and prejudice and nothing much to do with the institution of marriage, which has much bigger threats than the sexual identities of its brides and grooms.

Indeed, some of the biggest blowhards on this subject are people who are divorced, chronic cheaters or both. If nothing else, marriage needs more credible defenders.

The bottom line, for me, is that there is no way to convincingly argue that it's OK for the government to decide whom people are allowed to marry under the law. I recognize that some faiths will not perform or recognize same sex marriages, which is their privilege. But our government should render unto God the things that are God's, and stick to being Caesar.

I detect a high-handed meanness in all efforts to intrude into people's bedrooms and relationships. In fact, when state legislators tried to change our state constitution in 2006 to protect Pennsylvanians from future attempts to overturn our Defense of Marriage Act, they didn't stop with blocking same-sex marriage.

The proposal also targeted unmarried heterosexual couples in domestic partnerships, including senior citizens who chose not to marry to protect their Social Security. And it would have blocked not just same-sex marriages, but civil unions that might have given longtime committed couples some of the legal and economic protections of marriage.

Luckily, that effort failed, but the 1996 law banning same-sex marriage remained in place. Now it's being challenged in court, which brings us to Attorney General Kathleen Kane and Gov. Tom Corbett.

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision this year striking down a key portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Kane has declined to defend Pennsylvania's law, in effect deferring to Corbett, who opposes same sex marriage.

"I cannot ethically defend the constitutionality of Pennsylvania's version of DOMA," Kane explained. "I believe it to be wholly unconstitutional."

This has given rise to continuing charges — read our letters to the editor — that she is derelict in her duties to defend Pennsylvania's laws and is allowing politics to overrule her responsibilities. Montgomery County register of wills D. Bruce Hanes subsequently has begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and Corbett has taken action in Commonwealth Court to stop him.

Corbett's position earned him praise from, among others, a group called the Pennsylvania Pastors' Network, which is led by Sam Rohrer, the former extremely conservative state legislator from Berks County. He said all elected officials should heed Corbett's example, adding, "The Pennsylvania Pastors' Network urges pastors to earnestly preach the absolute truth of God's word and to teach that civil freedom can only survive when people self-govern their own actions according to the commands of God."

I'm a Christian, but I would respond that our civil freedom has nothing to do with anyone's interpretation of the commands of God. It's guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution, whatever our religious beliefs.

If I were a county official, I'm not sure I would be issuing marriage licenses to gay people until Pennsylvania's law is officially overturned. But if I were Kathleen Kane — or (gulp) Tom Corbett — I certainly wouldn't waste the state's resources defending a law that so clearly is misguided and unconstitutional.